Finding Dory and its Political Message:
An Examination of the Effects of Fiction Films with Implicit Political Messages on Politically Relevant Attitudes towards Societal Issues.
Lisa Dautzenberg 11136529
Master’s Thesis
Graduate School of Communication Master’s Programme of Communication Science
Supervisor: M. Boukes 28-06-2019 Word Count: 7374
Abstract
This study investigates the extent to which fiction films can affect politically relevant attitudes towards societal issues, and whether this potential effect is influenced by narrative transportation, empathy and need for cognition. An experimental research design was conducted (N = 242), to measure the effects of exposure to a video fragment of the animated fiction film Finding Dory, on the perceived importance regarding ocean pollution.
Participants were randomly assigned to a video fragment (e.g., ocean pollution frame vs. control condition). The results demonstrate that there were no significant differences between the effects of the two fragments. This indicates that exposure to a fiction film with an implicit political message about a societal issue does not increase the level of perceived importance regarding this societal issue. Neither were there significant effects of narrative transportation and need for cognition. There was, however, a significant effect of the level of empathy towards the main character and participants attitudes regarding ocean pollution. Overall, these results indicate that fiction films do not significantly affect politically relevant attitudes towards societal issues. Further implications and limitations are discussed.
Keywords: Agenda-Setting, Cultural Forum, Empathy, Fiction Films, Narrative Transportation, Need for Cognition.
Introduction
In the current media landscape, the viewer determines what it watches. And the viewer has decided: research shows a steady decline in news consumption and a significant increase in consumption of entertainment media (Prior, 2005). In political communication studies however, the focus of research largely remains on nonfictional media and its effect on political attitudes. As a result, relatively little is known about the effects of entertainment media on political attitudes, even with entertainment media having a wide and growing public.
This study will focus on one part of entertainment media, namely fictional media. Fiction is generally seen as “low culture” and therefore neglected in its potential political significance (Delli Carpini & Williams, 1994). This is however puzzling, considering that the themes, plots and dialogues within fiction also address social and political issues (Cao, 2015; Holbrook & Hill, 2005; LaMarre & Landreville, 2009; Mulligan & Habel, 2011; 2013; Mutz & Nir, 2010; Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983). Whereas nonfictional media are expected to live up to standards of objectivity and factual content, such expectations are not in place for fictional media (Brock, Strange & Green, 2002). If fiction would be able to affect political attitudes, this might raise questions about the responsibilities of producers of fictional media content. Furthermore, the large reach of fictional media, would make any potential significant effect on political attitudes have enormous consequences for public opinion.
The limited amount of research that has been conducted on the effects of fiction on political attitudes, focusses on fictional media that revolve explicitly around political events and characters (Holbrook & Hill, 2005; LaMarre & Landreville, 2009; Mulligan & Habel, 2011; 2013; Mutz & Nir, 2010). The current study fills a gap in the literature by focussing on fiction films with an implicit political message, where current socio-political issues are touched upon but do not form the main narrative. This study thereby attempts to answer the
following research question:
RQ: To what extent can fiction films affect politically relevant attitudes towards societal issues?
This research sets out with an exploration of the relevant and diverse academic literature on fictional television products. Particularly, fictional television is approached through a cultural perspective, in which television is considered a cultural forum. This approach is then further developed by adding a communication scientific perspective, where theories of persuasion and agenda-setting are applied. The theoretical exploration put forward four hypotheses, which were empirically tested by an experimental research design. Within this experiment, participants were exposed to fragments of the animation film Finding Dory: a fiction film, which implicitly addresses the societal issue of ocean pollution. The treatment group was exposed to a video fragment in which ocean litter could be seen throughout the whole fragment, yet, ocean pollution was not verbally discussed in this fragment. The control group was exposed to another video fragment of Finding Dory that did not address any societal issue.
Theory Television as a Cultural Forum
In 1983, Newcomb and Hirsch published an article in which they analysed popular American sitcoms and theorized that television is a cultural forum. As a cultural forum, television fulfils the “bardic function” (Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983, p. 564) of contemporary societies. This means that television often depicts issues that concern society. Using fictional characters and plots, a dramatized logic of public thought is created (Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983). The idea of television as a cultural forum contends that by addressing societal issues, an image of norms, values and ideologies that prevail in a society are provided and mirrored back to society. The emphasis in this process is not on indoctrinating people, but on evoking discussion about
societal issues. Television can in this context be considered a reflection of society (Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983).
Nearly all television texts contain representations of cultural issues, which means that almost all versions of fictional television texts function as a cultural forum (Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983). This does not imply that every single television text provides its audience with a variety of mixed ideas, but that “(…) it is television as a whole system that presents a mass audience with the range and variety of ideas and ideologies inherent in (American) culture.” (Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983, p. 566). This suggests that watching multiple episodes of one particular television program does not necessarily give a diverse view on society. Only if an individual would watch a variety of different programs, a diversity of views could be
experienced, because different television programs may discuss the same societal issue from a different perspective. This illuminates the importance of television programming, which can stimulate the diversity of television texts (Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983).
The cultural forum theory is still relevant to a large extent, and in some ways the increase in television channels has even expanded the forum (Lotz, 2004). On the other hand, the greater horizontal diversity, meaning an increase in the genres available simultaneously, has led to the division of the mass audience among subpopulations (Lotz, 2004). While television programming played an important role in the network era, personal motivation and interest now determine which media an individual will be exposed to (Prior, 2005; Sunstein, 2001; 2009). This makes it increasingly unlikely that all people are exposed to more or less the same content, as was the case in the network era in which the cultural forum theory was developed.
The consequences of the technological, economical and societal developments that caused a shift from the network era to the current post-network era, are significant when it comes to political information, as it enables people who prefer non-political content to
completely tune out political information. This causes a part of the population to be left politically uninformed (Prior, 2005). The current study suggests that this assumption should be taken into question, considering that media content, which is not explicitly political like fiction, can contain politically relevant content as well (Cao, 2015; Holbrook & Hill, 2005; Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983). This means that people with a preference for fiction may still be exposed to political information. Consequently, fiction has the potential to stimulate
otherwise politically uninterested people to consider societal issues (Baum, 2002). The polarized media landscape limits the role of television programming and
additionally makes it difficult to guarantee that people are exposed to a diverse cultural forum (Lotz, 2004). It therefore becomes interesting to focus on the potential effects and
consequences of one isolated television product, instead of on the cultural forum as an entity, and to investigate what happens if people are only exposed to a part of the cultural forum. It is for this reason that this study focuses on investigating the effects of one television product on viewers’ politically relevant attitudes.
Setting the Agenda Through Fiction
In addition to fulfilling a mirror function, television is also able to affect its audience and play a role in determining the public agenda (Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007; Strange & Leung, 1999). The agenda-setting theory departs from the assumption that there is a strong
correlation between the attention that mass media give to a certain issue and the level of importance given to these issues by citizens (Gross & Aday, 2003; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; McCombs & Shaw, 1972; McCombs, 2018; Scheufele & Tewksbury, 2007). Agenda-setting theory mainly focusses on news media and there is consensus that exposure to societal problems within the news can affect the judgements that audiences make about the importance of these problems (Strange & Leung, 1999).
relatively understudied. This is striking considering that the themes, plots and dialogues within fiction also address societal issues more or less explicitly (Baum, 2002; Cao, 2015; Holbrook & Hill, 2005; LaMarre & Landreville, 2009; Mulligan & Habel, 2011; 2013; Mutz & Nir, 2010; Newcomb & Hirsch, 1983). The difference between nonfiction and fiction is that the latter does not have to be objective and balanced (Brock, Strange & Green, 2002). While containing politically relevant content, fiction is not necessarily produced to provide information, but to entertain (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008; Prentice & Gerrig, 1999). Despite this, the limited amount of research that has been done demonstrates that people are
influenced by information in fictional media when forming or changing attitudes. One example is a study by Holbrook and Hill (2005) which investigated fictional crime dramas (e.g., The West Wing, Third Watch, Without a Trace, Robbery Homocide Division) and found that viewing crime dramas significantly increased the concerns people have about crime in real life. In this way crime dramas can influence the public agenda. LaMarre and Landreville (2009) compared the influence of documentaries with the influence of historical re-enactment films and concluded that a fictional re-enactment film leads to increased issue interest as much, or even more than a documentary. In two different studies, Mulligan and Habel (2011; 2013) tested the effects of different frames used in fiction films on attitudes. In one study, they showed how an abortion frame can influence the attitudes of viewers according to the frame that they had seen in the film. In the other study, they
demonstrated how fiction films can influence conspiracy theories about the U.S. government. Mutz and Nir (2010) conducted an experiment in which they tested the effects of a crime drama that shows either a positive or negative portrayal of the criminal justice system; they concluded that participants that empathized with the characters were influenced in their perceptions of the justice system. These studies, altogether, thus provide evidence that fiction has the potential to influence attitudes.
However, the content of the fictional media that were tested, all addressed the societal involved issues in an explicit manner. This means that either the topic was explicitly political, the societal issue was part of the plot, or the societal issue was explicitly discussed within the dialogues. It appears, however, that the chances that people are persuaded are highest when they are unaware that they are exposed to political messages (Adkins & Castle, 2014; Mutz & Nir, 2010). With this in mind, the current study further examines the potential effects of fiction on politically relevant attitudes, by focussing on fictional television that address societal issues in an implicit manner. The main topic in the television product used for the current experiment, Finding Dory, depicts ocean litter and in this way addresses the societal issue of ocean pollution. The societal problem ocean pollution is, however, not verbally discussed. Considering that people use information provided in fictional media to form attitudes, and taking into account that the chances that people are persuaded are highest when they are unaware that they are being persuaded, it is suggested that exposure to a video fragment of Finding Dory that implicitly addresses the societal problem of ocean pollution, should also influence viewers’ level of perceived importance regarding ocean pollution. From this follows the first hypothesis:
H1: Exposure to a fiction film with an implicit political message about a societal issue, will increase the level of perceived importance regarding this societal issue.
The Persuasive Power of Fiction
The question then remains why people would use fictional information to form attitudes about societal issues when they know this information is not “real”. An explanation for this is the level of narrative engagement that the audience experiences. People who are highly engaged with the narrative are more likely to accept the story-related beliefs (Green et al., 2006; LaMarre & Landreville, 2009). There are two opposing views concerning factors that determine the extent to which stories are engaging.
On the one hand, there is a perspective stating that the level of realism is an important factor. When the level of external realism is high, so when a story is similar to the actual world, engagement with the story is high as well (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008). Fiction films may contain unrealistic aspects, like animals and objects that talk and people with
supernatural powers. Especially the external realism of animated films is very low, since these films are either painted by hand or computer-generated, which distances them even further from the “real” world. Scholars writing from this perspective argue that, because fiction films are generally perceived as less realistic than nonfiction films, they are less credible and therefore less influential towards political attitudes (Cao, 2015; LaMarre & Landreville, 2009; Potter, 1986).
Opposing this view, there is a perspective stating that the power of a narrative is not reduced by the viewers’ knowledge that the story is invented and the level of external
realism. By contrast, the stories that engage us most are those that are fictional and unrealistic (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008). It appears that the extent to which people judge a story to be realistic depends on their feeling of being transported in that story. This phenomenological experience is comparable to the concept of flow and implies that all the mental systems and capacities of an individual become focused on the events that occur in the narrative (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008). People feel as if they are completely immersed in the world of the narrative and forget to observe events that are going on around them. The psychological experience of entering a fictional world, creates a cognitive experience that is similar to physically experiencing a real situation (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008). Fictional narratives are in that sense like simulations of the real world (Mar & Oatly, 2008). The feeling of being transported into a story can be explained by the Deictic Shift theory which states that in order to understand a narrative, people perceive the story from a perspective inside the narrative world: the deictic centre. This explains that people can have the idea of a direct experience
when they process a narrative (Busselle & Bilandzic, 2008).
When people perceive a narrative as fiction, they are less likely to critically evaluate the content (Prentice, Gerrig, & Bailis, 1997) and more likely to be transported into the story (LaMarre & Landreville, 2009). Transported people are subsequently even less likely to critically reflect the information that they receive and even more likely to accept this
information as true (Adkins & Castle, 2014; Green & Brock, 2000; Green & Donahue, 2011; Mutz & Nir, 2010). This suggests that the low level of external realism, of in this case Finding Dory, does not negatively affect the extent to which people are transported into the narrative. Considering that the extent to which people experience narrative transportation increases their acceptance of story-related beliefs, it is suggested that participants
experiencing a high level of narrative transportation are more likely to see ocean pollution as an important societal problem. Following this reasoning it is hypothesized that:
H2: The effects of fiction films on politically relevant attitudes towards societal issues are stronger for participants who experience a high level of narrative transportation.
Empathy and Persuasion
In addition to narrative transportation, the level of empathy that viewers experience towards the main character is an important aspect that influences the acceptance of story-related beliefs (Mutz & Nir, 2010). Viewing the misfortunes of fictional characters can stimulate empathic reactions towards these fictional characters. In addition, an event which is perceived as negative and threatening, will create more interest and attention than a positive perceived event. Subsequently, this leads to more learning, and stronger behavioural and action tendencies (LaMarre & Landreville, 2009).
The video fragments used in the current study both depict situations which can be perceived as negative and threatening. Besides, the main character, Dory, experiences several misfortunes. It is therefore assumed that participants will experience feelings of empathy
towards Dory. These feelings of empathy may explain the extent to which participants learn about ocean pollution as an important societal issue and the extent to which they develop behavioural and action tendencies. This leads to the third hypothesis:
H3: The effects of fiction films on politically relevant attitudes towards societal issues, are mediated by the level of participants’ feelings of empathy towards the main character. Need for Cognition as Moderator
In addition to the content depicted in fiction films, the way individuals personally process the content is an important factor when examining whether fiction can affect politically relevant attitudes. The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) contends that there are two distinct routes to persuasion: the central and the peripheral route (Cao, 2005; Green et al., 2006; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). Following the central route, people would use high elaboration when making decisions. This means that the information is processed carefully and that the arguments are well evaluated when forming a decision. Following the peripheral route, people would use low elaboration when making decisions. This means that they rely on simple cues associated with messages when forming a judgement and do not evaluate the strength of arguments. Strong arguments will therefore not necessarily get more support than weak arguments (Cao, 2005; Green et al., 2006).
Within the ELM there are individual factors that influence message processing and, in this way, indirectly influence persuasion (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986). One of these is the Need for Cognition (NfC) of a person, which is defined as the tendency of a person to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive activity (Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein & Jarvis, 1996). Individuals with a high-NfC tend to process information via the central route, often think carefully about the information they receive and are sensitive to the quality of the arguments. Individuals who have a low-NfC tend to process the information via the peripheral route and are more likely to accept the information they receive, despite the quality of the arguments.
There are possibilities of influencing the way of systematic processing. The current study will manipulate the NfC of the participants. Before watching the video fragment of Finding Dory, participants will be randomly assigned to watch the video fragment in a relaxing manner (low-NfC), or to watch the video fragment while focussing and paying close attention (high-NfC). There is a consensus that fiction is generally consumed via the
peripheral route, using low elaboration (Prentice & Gerrig, 1999). When people’s NfC is manipulated and they are stimulated to watch the video fragment with a high-NfC, the implicit political message is more likely to be recognized. Once recognized, the information lacking strong arguments is more likely to be discounted (Mulligan & Habel, 2011; 2013). The following is therefore hypothesized:
H4: The level of perceived importance regarding a societal issue will be higher for participants with a low need for cognition.
Methods Design
The current study investigated whether fictional media can affect politically relevant attitudes towards societal issues. In order to test the theory, an online experiment was conducted, constituting of a 2 (frame: ocean pollution vs. control condition) x 2 (need for cognition: low vs. high) between-subjects design, in May 2019. After providing the participants with the necessary information about the experiment and informed consent, they were randomly assigned by the online survey tool (Qualtrics) to one of the four conditions: the ocean
pollution frame with a high need for cognition (n = 62), the ocean pollution frame with a low need for cognition (n = 58), the control condition with a high need for cognition (n = 59), or the control condition with a low need for cognition (n = 63).
Sample
convenience sampling. More specifically, the social network sites Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and the online tool Surveyswap, were used to recruit participants. Considering most participants are part of the network of the researcher, the sample is not representative for the whole population.
Participants had to be 18 years or older. Since the experiment was available in Dutch and English, it was required that participants spoke one of the two languages. There was no specific target group, which means that there were no further requirements for people to join the experiment.
242 Participants completed at least 70% of the experiment. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 79 years (M = 33.66, SD = 14.38), and 61.3 % were female. The majority was highly educated (53.7%), while only a small part was low educated (15.3%). The largest part of the sample reported that they were currently living in the Netherlands (79.6%). The other participants mainly came from The United Kingdom (6%), Germany (3.4%), Spain (3%) and Australia (1.3%).
Stimulus materials
Both video fragments are part of the animation film Finding Dory. This is a fiction film, in which a royal blue tang fish called Dory plays the main character. The film is about Dory trying to find her parents, who she lost a long time ago. The fragments used for this
experiment were shown in the exact same manner as in the film. This means that they were solely cut from the film, but that no further edits were made.
The language spoken in the video fragments is English, accompanied by Dutch subtitles. The choice for Dutch subtitles was made because it was assumed that most participants would be Dutch and this assured that the video was well understood.
One of the reasons Finding Dory was chosen is because it implicitly addresses a societal problem that is currently topical, namely ocean pollution. The choice for a Pixar film
is convenient because this means that the external validity of the study is high. Over the years Pixar, a subsidiary brand of Walt Disney Studios specialised in animation films, has produced several films whereof is assumed that they would contain implicit political messages. One of these is WALL-E which would address the problem of over-consumption and waste ruining the planet. Secondly, Happy Feet would address how global warming can ruin the glaciers. Thirdly, Cars 2 would state how oil is the villain and renewable energy is the hero. Besides these three examples, there are many more Pixar films of which is speculated that they would contain political messages. Considering that the results of the current study may be applicable to other Pixar films as well, this has positive consequences for the external validity.
Ocean pollution frame. In the condition with the ocean pollution frame, the participants were exposed to a 3-minute video fragment of Finding Dory. In the video
fragment, Dory and her friends are swimming in a “bad neighbourhood”. This neighbourhood mainly exists of litter caused by a sunken cargo ship. Dory and her friends have to flee from an octopus who is trying to catch them. While fleeing, the fish are swimming across and through sunken containers. At some point, Dory gets stuck in a piece of plastic. At the end of the fragment Dory thinks that she has almost found her parents, but then two humans “save” her from the plastic. This leads to her getting separated from her friends.
Ocean litter is visible throughout the whole fragments and plays an important role because it creates the atmosphere of the “bad neighbourhood” and, moreover, leads to Dory being separated from her friends. The litter is not verbally discussed.
Control condition. In the control condition, the participants were exposed to a 2.5-minute video fragment of Finding Dory. In the video fragment Dory suddenly remembers where her parents are from. She panics and quickly swims away, leaving her friends behind. After her friends have chased her, they tell her that they will help her to find her parents. This situation is comparable to the “fleeing scene” from the video fragment with the ocean
pollution frame: Dory panics and quickly swims through the ocean, while passing several objects. This has positive consequences for the internal validity. Contrary to the other fragment, the objects Dory passes do not consist of ocean litter. Throughout the whole fragment ocean litter is not visible, nor is it verbally discussed.
Need for Cognition. In addition to the video fragments, participants were randomly assigned to a short text manipulating their need for cognition. Before the video, the
participants received a text which either told them to sit back and relax (low-NfC), or to focus and pay close attention (high-NfC).
Manipulation check
Whether the manipulations worked as intended was measured by means of two manipulation checks. The manipulation checks consisted of two questions that were asked at the end of the experiment. Firstly, it was asked whether participants had seen any plastic in the video
fragment. Answers option were “Yes”, “No” or “Don’t know”. 87.1% Of the participants that were assigned to the video with the ocean pollution frame responded correctly and indicated that they had seen plastic. Some of the participants responded to not have seen any plastic (19.2%) and 9.5% responded “Don’t know”. Within the control condition, 61.7% responded correctly and indicated that they did not see any plastic. Only a small part responded to have seen plastic (3.4%) and 19.2% responded “Don’t know”. Overall, the manipulation was significant, χ2 (2, N = 236) = 116.09, p < .001, Phi = .70.
Whether the manipulation of NfC worked as intended, was measured by asking which intention people had when watching the video. Participants could choose whether they
watched the video simply to enjoy it or while focussing. Also the answer option “Don’t know” was provided. The manipulation worked as intended, χ2 (2, N = 236) = 7.40, p = .025, Phi = .18. From the participants in the high-NfC condition, 72% indicated to have watched with the intention to pay close attention, while 20.3% indicated to have watched the video
with the intention to simply enjoy it. A small part of the participants responded “Don’t know” (7.6%). Within the low-NfC condition, 34.4% indicated to have watched the video with the intention to simply enjoy it, while 55.1% of the participants responded to have watched the video with the intention to pay close attention. Of all participants, 13.6% did not know with what intention they watched the video. We can thus conclude that closer attention was paid in the high-NfC condition.
Randomization check
To check whether the randomization of the participants to the conditions was successful, first, a one-way analysis of variance with the four condition (i.e., ocean pollution frame with high-NfC, ocean pollution frame with low-high-NfC, control condition with high-high-NfC, control
condition with low-NfC) as the independent variable and age as the dependent variable was conducted. There was no main effect of the conditions of age, F (3, 231) = .04, p = .991. Second, Chi-square tests were conducted to test randomization for sex. There were no significant differences between the conditions on sex, χ2 (3) = 4.76, p = .190. Randomization was thus successful.
Measures
Independent variable
Video type. The independent variable in the current study consisted of the two video fragments (i.e., ocean pollution frame vs. control condition) that participants had been randomly assigned to.
Mediator
Empathy. The extent to which participants felt empathy towards the main character, was measured with three items. These items were based on the items used by Mutz and Nir (2010), but adjusted to these specific video fragments. The items were measured on a 7-point scale (M = 5.26, SD = 1.23), ranging from 1 (Completely disagree) to 7 (Completely agree).
A principle axis factor analysis with varimax rotation, showed that the three items form a uni-dimensional scale. The items loaded on one factor (Eigenvalue = 2.20) and explained 73.40% of the variance. The items form a reliable scale (Cronbach’s α = .81). Table 1.
The three items used to create the scale for Empathy.
Item M SD
While watching the video I felt pity for Dory. 5.19 1.43
While watching the video I felt sympathy for Dory. 5.41 1.32 While watching the video I felt sorry for Dory for losing her
parents.
5.18 1.57
Moderators
Narrative transportation. The extent to which participants were transported into the story was measured with a shortened version of the Transport Narrative Questionnaire by Green & Brock (2013). From the six items measured, two could only be used to create a reliable scale for Narrative Transportation (Cronbach’s α = .74). The items were measured on a 7-point scale (M = 4.29, SD = 1.61), ranging from 1 (Completely disagree) to 7
(Completely agree), but were reversed, which means that a high score for these items now indicates a high level of narrative transportation.
Table 2.
The two items used to create the scale for Narrative Transportation.
Item M SD
While watching the video activity going on in the room around me was on my mind.
4.43 1.86
While watching the video I found my mind wandering. 4.04 1.76 Dependent variable
Politically relevant attitudes. Participants’ attitudes towards ocean pollution were measured using 12 items. These items were taken from the European Social Survey (ESS; 2016). In one part of the ESS (2016), attitudes towards climate change were measured. For the current study these questions have been modified. The word “climate” has been replaced
by “ocean pollution”, and where needed the questions have been further adjusted linguistically. All items were measured on a 7-point scale (M = 5.65, SD = .64). Answer options depended on the question but ranged from 1 (indicating a low level of the perceived importance of ocean pollution) to 7 (indicating a high level of the perceived importance of ocean pollution).
A principal axis factor analysis showed that the 12 items were divided among three scales. Despite this, the scale was considerably more reliable when the 12 items were used as one scale. The reason is probably that factor analysis on scales with relatively many items leads to “over-dimensionalisation” (Van der Eijk & Rose, 2015). This led to the choice of using a single scale for attitude (Cronbach’s α = .74).
Table 3.
The 12 items used to create the scale for Attitude.
Item M SD
Do you think the oceans are getting more and more polluted? 6.60 .72 In your daily life, how often do you do things to reduce ocean
pollution?
5.07 1.29
How worried are you about ocean pollution? 5.63 1.85
How much have you thought about ocean pollution before today?
3.80 1.85
To what extent do you feel a personal responsibility to try to reduce ocean pollution?
4.94 1.31
Overall, how confident are you that you could use less plastic than you do now?
5.95 .99
How good or bad do you think the impact of ocean pollution will be on people across the world?
5.64 1.67
How important do you think it is that governments in enough countries will take action that reduces ocean pollution?
6.37 1.12
To what extent are you in favour or against increasing taxes on plastic products?
5.43 1.48
To what extent are you in favour or against using public money to subsidize ocean clean-ups?
5.82 1.17
To what extent are you in favour or against stricter laws for citizens regarding ocean pollution?
5.93 1.11
To what extent are you in favour or against stricter laws for companies regarding ocean pollution?
Procedure
The online experiment started after the respondent had opened the link in Qualtrics. Firstly, participants were exposed to a page that informed them about the research and showed them the informed consent. After providing the consent, participants were randomly assigned to one of the four manipulation groups. These groups constituted of one of the two video fragments and one of the two manipulations for need of cognition.
All participants answered questions about their level of narrative transportation into the story and their feelings of empathy. Thereafter, they had to answer several questions about their attitudes towards ocean pollution. Lastly, some general information about television use and further demographics were asked. After completing the survey, the respondents received a page which thanked them for their participation.
Results
To test whether exposure to a fiction film with an implicit political message about a societal issue increased the level of perceived importance regarding that societal issue, an
independent t-test was conducted with video type as the independent variable and attitude as the dependent variable. The analysis showed that the average score for attitude of the
participants who were exposed to the video with the ocean pollution frame (M = 5.59, SD = .66) was lower than the average score of attitude from the participants in the control condition (M = 5.70, SD = .63). This discrepancy was however insignificant t (239) = 1.26, p = 209, 95%CI [-.06, .27]. This means that exposure to a fiction film with an implicit political message about a societal issue does not increase the perceived level of importance regarding this societal issue. The first hypothesis is not supported.
To test whether the effects of fiction films on politically relevant attitudes are stronger for participants who experienced a high level of narrative transportation, a moderation
10,000. The results are shown in Tabel 4. The interaction effect of video type and narrative transportation causes a smaller decrease in attitude than when solely the effects of video type are measured. This suggests that there is a very small, positive interaction effect of narrative transportation and video type. This interaction effect is however not significant, F (3, 237) = .04, p = .847. The second hypothesis is therefore not supported.
Table 4.
The effects of Narrative Transportation.
b p
Constant 5.63 .000
Video Type (0 = control, 1 = ocean pollution) -.06 .796
Narrative Transportation .02 .667
Video Type x Narrative Transportation -.01 .847
To test whether the effects of fiction films on politically relevant attitudes towards societal issues can be explained by participants’ feelings of empathy towards the main character, a mediation analysis was assessed with PROCESS (Hayes, 2013), Model 4 with bootstrapping set to 10,000. The results are shown in Figure 1. As found in the earlier analyses, there was no direct effect of video type on attitude (b = -.15, p = .157).
Furthermore, there was no significant effect of video type on empathy (b = -.02, p = .915), making a mediation through empathy impossible. Yet, there was a positive significant effect
-.02 .14**
-.15 ¶
* significant at p < .05 ** significant at p < .01
Figure 1. Mediation model.
Video type Attitude
of empathy on attitude (b = .14, p = .001). Overall, the indirect effect was however not significant (b = -.00, 95%CI [-.06, .06]). This means that the effect of video type on attitude cannot be explained by the level of empathy. The third hypothesis can therefore not be supported.
To test whether the effect of video type on the perceived level of importance
regarding a societal issue was higher for participants with a low-NfC, a two-way analysis of variance was conducted with video type and NfC as independent variables and attitude as the dependent variable. The mean scores for every condition are shown in Table 5. The
interaction effect of video type and NfC was not significant, F (1, 237) = .24, p = .625, η2 partial = .00. Neither the main effect of NfC was significant, F (1, 237) = .49, p = .487, η2
partial = .00. In line with the independent t-test, also the main effect of video type was not significant, F (1, 237) = 1.53, p = .218, η2
partial = .00. Overall, this means that the perceived level of importance regarding a societal issue was not significantly higher for participants with a low-NfC. The fourth hypothesis is therefore not supported.
Table 5.
Mean scores of attitude for every condition.
High-NfC Low-NfC Total
Ocean pollution frame 5.55 5.64 5.59
Control condition 5.69 5.71 5.70
Total 5.62 5.68 5.65
Conclusion and Discussion
This study investigated whether fiction films can affect politically relevant attitudes towards societal issues. Furthermore, it was investigated whether this potential effect was influenced by the level of narrative transportation, empathy and the need for cognition of the participant. Based on a theoretical framework, four hypotheses were developed. These were thereafter tested in an experimental research design that measured the effects of exposure to ocean
pollution in one of the two fragments taken from Finding Dory, on the perceived importance towards ocean pollution.
The experiment found that exposure to a fiction film with an implicit political message about a societal issue did not increase the level of perceived importance regarding this societal issue. This means that the effect of the video with the ocean pollution frame did not differ significantly from the video without the ocean pollution frame. Neither were there significant effects of narrative transportation or NfC that increased the degree to which video type influence the perceived level of importance towards ocean pollution. Moreover, it was not possible to explain the relationship between the video fragments and their effect on people’s attitudes, by participants’ level of empathy. There was, however, a significant effect of the level of empathy towards the main character and participants’ attitudes regarding ocean pollution. This finding is in line with the existing literature stating that high levels of empathy increase the acceptance of story-related beliefs (Mutz & Nir, 2010).
Overall, these results indicate that fiction films do not significantly affect politically relevant attitudes. This conclusion is not in line with existing literature which states that fiction is able to affect attitudes (Holbrook & Hill, 2005; LaMarre & Landreville, 2009; Mulligan & Habel, 2011; 2013; Mutz & Nir, 2010). Differently than these studies, the current study investigated implicit political messages. It can therefore be assumed that political messages in fiction films need a certain degree of explicitness to be able to affect people’s attitudes. Furthermore, these results indicate that when it comes to fiction films in which the political issue is only implicitly represented, empathy is the most important factor that determines people’s politically relevant attitudes.
A crucial difference between previous studies and the current experiment is the level of external realism. The current study used an animated fiction film with fish playing the
main characters, while previous research used fiction films that were not animated and in which humans played the main characters. Finding Dory contains a lot of unrealistic aspects, considering that it is an animated film in which animals can talk, which means that the level of external realism is low. Differently than expected, it is possible that the low external realism has affected the credibility of the video fragments, and has, thus, decreased the influence of the video fragments on politically relevant attitudes (Cao, 2015; LaMarre & Landreville, 2009; Potter, 1986).
In addition to external realism, identification with the characters could have played a role regarding the effect of the videos and the level of empathy. Identification can influence the degree to which viewers adjust their opinions along the narrative’s message (Mutz & Nir, 2010). Considering that the main characters constitute of fish, identification with the main characters may have been low, which subsequently lowered the effects of the video fragments on politically relevant attitudes.
Furthermore, there are a few reasons that can explain the lack of effect of narrative transportation. First of all, there were some methodological shortcomings, considering that the scale used to measure narrative transportation had to be shortened from six to two items in order to form a reliable scale. This indicates that the scale did not work as indented. Secondly, the duration of the videos may have played a role. The length of the video fragments was between 2.5 and 3 minutes, which may have been too short to create high levels of narrative transportation. Previous studies that measured narrative transportation and found significant effects used complete films (Adkins & Castle, 2014; LaMarre &
Landreville, 2009; Mutz & Nir, 2010). Considering that the fragments used in this study did not create an effect of narrative transportation, it is assumed that exposure to a complete film is an important factor to create narrative transportation. Moreover, the use of video fragments instead of complete films may have made it difficult for the participants to fully comprehend
the events happening in the fragment, which in turn could have lowered the effects of narrative transportation.
Moreover, this study found that low levels of NfC did not create higher levels of perceived importance regarding ocean pollution. This can be explained by the fact that a large part of the participants that were manipulated to watch with a low-NfC, still reported to have watched the video fragment with a high-NfC. This could mean that people are more focussed when watching fiction than is usually expected. The assumption that fiction is generally consumed using low elaboration may not be correctly. To fully substantiate this statement, further research is, however, necessary.
Implications
This study fills a gap in literature by measuring the potential effects of fiction films with an implicit political message about a societal issue on the perceived importance towards this societal issue. While previous studies have shown that fiction films with more explicit political messages are able to influence their audience, the current study shows that fiction films with implicit political message do not. Furthermore, it appears that the feelings of empathy that viewers experience towards the involved actors (in this case fish) have a stronger influence on politically relevant attitudes than the implicit political messages themselves. This has implications for video content with persuasive purposes. When a video is used to persuade an audience of a certain idea or view, creating feelings of empathy will be an effective method.
Considering that the video fragments did not have a significant effect on politically relevant attitudes, there are no implications that imply any serious consequences for society. Neither are there further restrictions necessary, such as more objectivity or a more balanced view, concerning the production of fiction films.
Limitations
One of the limitations of this study is the lack of an experimental condition in which participants were not exposed to a fragment of Finding Dory, but were solely questioned about their attitudes. The current study compared the effects of two video fragments from the same fiction film, to compare whether the video with a specific frame had more effect on politically relevant attitudes than the video without that specific frame. By adding an extra experimental condition, it would be able to give a more comprehensive answer to the question whether fiction films itself, rather than the specific content, can affect politically relevant attitudes.
As already mentioned, two limitations of this study are the methodological
shortcomings concerning the scale used to measure narrative transportation, and the short length of the video fragments. For further research, some actions have to be taken to improve the narrative transportation scale, such as reformulating the questions. Furthermore, it would be interesting to use a complete film instead of a fragment, and compare the effects of
watching an entire film with an implicit political message, watching a film without a political message and a control condition in which participants are not exposed to a film.
Moreover, there are some limitations concerning the external validity. This research uses the Pixar film Finding Dory. Considering that it is assumed that a lot of Pixar films implicitly address societal issues, the external validity of this study is high concerning Pixar films. On the other hand, there are many fiction films which are of a completely different nature (e.g., not animated, without animals). The external validity concerning fiction films other than Pixar films is therefore low. It is recommended for further research to replicate this study, but with a fiction film from a different nature. Think for example of Forrest Gump, Mary Poppins or Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, which are all fiction films of which is assumed that they contain implicit political messages.
Another limitation is that the sample is not representative for the whole population, which restricts its generalizability. Considering that the participants were acquired through the network of the researcher, this resulted in a young and high educated sample. For further research it would be interesting to replicate this study with a representative sample.
Overall, this study has made a good starting point for further investigation regarding the potential effects of fiction films with implicit political messages on politically relevant attitudes. To fully establish whether there really are no effects, further research is necessary. For now, it can be concluded that fiction films with hidden political messages are not likely to persuade the audience. As Newcomb and Hirsch already concluded in 1983, television is a storyteller which mirrors the events concerning our society, but it is does not necessarily indoctrinate its audience. In a time in which television enjoys such a large extent of popularity, the idea that not all television content is influential may be comforting.
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Appendix A – Ocean Pollution Frame
Image 1. Dory and her friends are swimming across ocean litter, while looking for her parents.
Image 2. Dory is stuck in plastic, while fleeing for an octopus.
Appendix B – Control Condition
Image 4. Dory is sad about losing her parents.
Image 5. Dory panics and swims fast through the ocean.
